Hopson v. State

KENNEDY, Judge.

Defendant in 1971 pleaded guilty to a charge of forcible rape and was sentenced to life imprisonment. (At that time, the death penalty was authorized for forcible rape. § 559.260, RSMo 1969 (repealed 1975)). He has filed a Rule 27.26 motion for relief based on the ground of his retained counsel's conflict of interest in that he also represented a codefendant, one Mitchell Mack.

Representation of multiple defendants is not per se a violation of Sixth Amendment guarantees of effective assistance of counsel. Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U.S. 475, 483, 98 S.Ct. 1173, 1178, 55 L.Ed.2d…